Monday, January 31, 2011

We all know “a neighbour’s pasture always seems greener to humans”. But is Facebook making it worse?

Is Facebook making you sad? Do you look at your friends’ status updates and pictures and think their lives are more exciting than yours?

A New research from Stanford University says although we often compare ourselves to others and think that they are leading more fulfilling and happy lives. And that may not be a new phenomenon, but social media may be making it worse.

The study, conducted by a PhD student at Stanford, to find out how happy we think our friends are, and whether we’re right; asked college freshmen to estimate how many positive and negative experiences they think their friends are having.

Finding: The study found that most respondents overestimated their friends’ quality of life.

In a separate study, researchers found “the more that people overestimate how happy their friends were, the more upset they are with their own lives”.

Being a Facebook user, I also noticed that, the more time I spend on Facebook socializing with friends; the more inclined I become to check how people I know are doing in their lives. And to be frank, the other pasture always appears green; which triggers a unhappy feeling for self. And it amazes me, just like it may have you sometimes, how smart is brain, in picking the deficiencies. If a person has money, then he/she will sift discreetly to find what is deficient in his/her education. And there’s no end to this constant search.

Minding one’s own business can be key to be away from this unhappiness most of the times. As no matter how much one tries “a neighbour’s pasture always seems greener to humans”.